wife, without further effort to comfort her, and pottered heavily out
into the dining-room. Beyond its obscurity stretched the glitter of the
deep drawing-room. His feet, in their broad; flat slippers, made no sound
on the dense carpet, and he came unseen upon the little group there near
the piano. Mela perched upon the stool with her back to the keys, and
Beaton bent over Christine, who sat with a banjo in her lap, letting him
take her hands and put them in the right place on the instrument. Her
face was radiant with happiness, and Mela was watching her with foolish,
unselfish pleasure in her bliss.

There was nothing wrong in the affair to a man of Dryfoos's traditions
and perceptions, and if it had been at home in the farm sitting-room, or
even in his parlor at Moffitt, he would not have minded a young man's
placing his daughter's hands on a banjo, or even holding them there; it
would have seemed a proper, attention from him if he was courting her.
But here, in such a house as this, with the daughter of a man who had
made as much money as he had, he did not know but it was a liberty. He
felt the angry doubt of it which beset him in regard to so many
experiences of his changed life; he wanted to show his sense of it, if it
was a liberty, but he did not know how, and he did not know that it was
so. Besides, he could not help a touch of the pleasure in Christine's
happiness which Mela showed; and he would have gone back to the library,
if he could, without being discovered.

But Beaton had seen him, and Dryfoos, with a nonchalant nod to the young
man, came forward. "What you got there, Christine?"

"A banjo," said the girl, blushing in her father's presence.

Mela gurgled. "Mr. Beaton is learnun' her the first position."